


of chocolate milk and baileys

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Drinking to Cope, Found Footage, Grief/Mourning, Pepper is a good mom, Pepper is everyone's mom, Sibling Relationship, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 08:03:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: “Morgan, do you know who we are?” He asks tentatively. The waitress brings out three glasses of chocolate milk and one almost burn waffle smeared with peanut butter and chocolate and gives them a strange look.Morgan scoffs. “Duh. My brothers Peter and Harley. From the photobooks.” If she hears their pained gasps, she ignores it. “Daddy said you went away for a bit.” She shoves her mouth full of burnt peanut butter sugar and then adds, “He got sad and then he went to find you.”She chews for a while, and Peter passes a flask to Harley and together they spike their milk, subtle and mindful of the girl between them. She points a fork at Harley, slinging syrup at him. “You build stuff. He made you a garage,” and then she turns her fork on Peter. “He built you a suit.”





	of chocolate milk and baileys

Peter sits in the booth, eyes watery and cheeks burning, but he definitely feels better than Harley across from him. He watches the older boy dump six packets of sugar into the tiny mug of steaming coffee, and then pour sugar over his grits and his sausage. 

He can’t help the noise off disgust. Harley doesn’t even look at him. He gives a full body shiver that might be from the air blowing over them. Or it might be from last night, and the bruises peeking out of the collar of his old shirt. 

Or it might be the grief. Peter shivers beneath a hoodie that smells like axe spray and asks, “Why are waffle Houses always so cold?”

Harley blinks at him from where he’s  _ still _ drowning his sausage. His eyes are red rimmed and swollen and his cheeks rubbed raw, and Peter thinks he’s just not going to answer when Harley finally says. “‘Cause this place ain’t real.” 

It’s… It’s 2 in the afternoon and he’s a little hungover and it's been a rough few days but he’s pretty sure he’s not dreaming. He stabs Harley with his fork to make sure, watching as the older boy his and grips his arm. “What.” Peter says more than asks.

Harley licks at the sticky stab wound, takes a huge swallow of too-sweet-too-hot coffee and waves a hand. “This place is magic. It exist outside of time and space and magic and science and physics and paradox. I mean, where else can you get questionable eggs served on a sticky plate from a waiter who most probably just lit up and  _ not _ catch all diseases ever. This is a refuge that doesn’t discriminate.” His voice wobbles though and when he bends his head to shovel sweet eggs and sausage into his mouth, Peter can see the syrup separating beneath the tears.

“That’s not,” He pauses. “That makes no sense. That’s not how any of that works. This is a very solid, very cold building and you have disgusting eating habits.” 

Harley shrugs. “Yeah, Spiderboy? You gonna prove it? ‘Cause lately reality ain’t logical and aint worth shit.”

And yeah, Harley has a point. So Peter quietly pours too much hot sauce on his hashbrowns and pretends that’s the only burn he feels.

\--

They get back to the house. The house, not the tower, and Pepper is standing over the couch, not really seeing it. Rhodey is still curled in his chair, afghan haphazardly tossed over him, and Peter thinks he’ll wake up just to eat and go back to sleep.

Harley shoves past Peter to grab his keys from the floor and Pepper looks up, finally. “The couch boys? Really? This can’t be cleaned.” 

Peter blushes but Harley mostly just shrugs. “Yeah. well, the cabinets mostly empty too. ‘Cept the cherry shit.” 

Pepper blinks at them, sighs heavily. She looks like she wants to say something, wants to reach for something. All that’s before her are two boys, broken and out place in time though. Upstairs, Morgan begins to stir, the first cries sounding from her room. Pepper looks up, eyes water and keeps shaking, and Harley steps forward.

“Get some sleep, Peps. Spiderboy and I got this,” he says gentle. 

Peter’s getting really annoyed at being called  _ Spiderboy _ , but he nods his head and pushes Pepper towards her room. “We’ll take care of her.” 

“Yes, you’ll be good for your sister,” Pepper says distractedly. And then she moves towards her room like she’s dreaming, and Harley and Peter look at each other, and go to pick up Tony Stark’s flesh-and-blood daughter.

\--

Morgan warms up to them like a kid who didn’t know anything about before. Harley picks her up, wraps his lean muscled arms around her and rocks her as she cries. “Daddy?” She asks over and over, and she knows the answer. They all saw the video, but she keeps asking, relentless and demanding until Harley collapse on a too small bed, sobbing and Peter has to grab the child. He rocks her back and forth until she’s cried out, just small sniffs against his shoulder and she finally asks “Mommy?”

“She’s resting,” Peter tells her. 

Because he doesn’t know what else to say. How else to explain the women laying in a too-big bed in the dark, sobbing so hard her whole body shakes. Weeping like she’s never going to be whole again. 

Peter thinks,  _ she won’t be. _

Harley thinks,  _ she can’t be. _

But they don’t tell Morgan. Instead Harley wipes his eyes on his sleeves and says, “C’mon kid. Let’s get juice pops.”

\--

Harley is good with her. Like, really good He carries her on his back and he tells her all manner of ridiculous stories and he takes her to the garage and keep sher safe as he tinkers. 

“‘M thirsty Harl,” Morgan says quietly. 

“Juice?” Harley asks.    


She contemplates it for a long while, and then she shakes her head. “Chocolate milk.” 

Peter shares a guilty look with Harley, thinking of the empty jug next to the bottle of baileys. 

“How’s Waffle House sound?” Harley asks her. She nods and Harley puts his tools down, lifts her onto his back and shuffles out of the garage. 

“Can we invite mommy?” Morgan asks. Harley stumbles a little, looks at Peter and Peter gently tells her. “Mommy still isn’t feeling good. So maybe not this time.” Morgan looks at him with heavy eyes,  _ brown just like her father’s _ , and says, “Can I get a waffle too?” 

The boys share a glance and they say, “Yeah kid, whatever you want.”

\--

It’s weird, being back at the Waffle House with Tony’s daughter nestled between them. Harley thinks of it first, the glaring issue. 

“Morgan, do you know who we are?” He asks tentatively. The waitress brings out three glasses of chocolate milk and one almost burn waffle smeared with peanut butter and chocolate and gives them a strange look.

Morgan scoffs. “Duh. My brothers Peter and Harley. From the photobooks.” If she hears their pained gasps, she ignores it. “Daddy said you went away for a bit.” She shoves her mouth full of burnt peanut butter sugar and then adds, “He got sad and then he went to find you.” 

She chews for a while, and Peter passes a flask to Harley and together they spike their milk, subtle and mindful of the girl between them. She points a fork at Harley, slinging syrup at him. “You build stuff. He made you a garage,” and then she turns her fork on Peter. “He built you a suit.”

She goes back to her food and for a long time they’re all quiet. And then she says, “You’ll protect me. Until he’s back.” And she doesnt leave room for argument and the boys don’t have one anyway, so they stay silent drinking their milk and watching this girl between them, and trying to figure out how they’re going to explain it to her. How they’ll tell her,  _ he isn’t _ .

\--

Pepper handles it as well as she can. She finds the records. “You were driving. And, and a lot of people were driving. And-” 

Harley tears out of the building before she can finish and she looks at Peter. All he asks is, “Did she make it?” Pepper shakes his head and Peter doesn’t want to know anything more. “I’ll go find him. Morgan wants you to tuck her in.” 

Pepper reaches for him and for just a second he pulls back, and then hurt flashes across her face and he collapses into her. She smells like Tony, like his aftershave, and it aches. “Bring him home, Peter. Bring my boy home.”

\--

He finds Harley, unsurprisingly, in the garage. He’s… there’s a wrench in his hand but he’s using it like a hammer on the engine of one of Tony’s favorite cars. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” Peter says quiet. And Harley spins, fire in his eyes and he stalks towards Peter, shoves him hard. “You killed Tony and I killed my family and here we are, acting like we’re her  _ brothers _ .” 

And he presses his fingers to the bruise still purple and throbbing on Peter’s neck and he says, “and the world is so fuckin’ different and all I can think is I hate you, because you were the son every one saw, and I love you because he did, and I want you.” 

“But do you want me because I’m what’s left, or do you want me because  _ you want me _ ?” Peter finishes for him.

And Harley nods. Peter looks at him, at this 20 year old kid who should be older but looks so much younger. And he thinks about his own 17 years, and the five hours in the dust and the weight of a whole unfamiliar world that isn’t his own. 

“I miss him,” Peter says. “And it’s weird because it didn’t feel like…” 

Harley nods. “You got to see him though. Last time I saw him was a couple of weeks ago, when he came to the garage to see the new engine I was building.” 

Peter’s face does a complicated thing and then Harley’s lips tremble. “Well, not a couple of weeks.” 

Someone sobs, and then they’re on their knees on the stone floor holding each other and biting their grief into each other's shoulder because they don’t know what else to do. Who else to go to.

Pepper finds them later, wrapped in each other and an old, greased stained towel and she sets a plate of sandwiches before them. “Morgan tried to help, so they’re kinda smashed. I didn’t let her add goldfish or yogurt though.” 

And she smiles at them, but it doesn’t reach her eyes and neither of them miss the lipstick smear of the dark under her blue eyes. 

Harley stands, tugging Petter up. “We can clean up,” he says quiet. “Go put Morgan to bed.” 

Pepper sobs then, just once, palm smashed to her lips. “She won’t. She keeps asking for Tony.” 

It cuts them all, cuts them so hard Peter thinks none of them are going to leave this room.. But Harley wraps his arm around Pepper’s shoulder and grips Peter’s wrist and they leave the sandwiches abandoned on the floor. 

Together they crowd  Morgan in her bed and they hold her as she cries. No one has any words. It doesn’t get better and he won’t come back. 

Harley aches for the family she won’t know. Peter is relieved for the memories that’ll fade. Pepper… Pepper never wanted to do this alone. 

But she has her boys, and maybe…

\--

Harley slides an envelope to Peter. “The fuck is this?” 

Peter opens the envelope. He frowns. “It’s your bank statement.” 

Harley scoffs. “My family never had that many zeros,  _ Spiderboy.” _

Peter shrugs, stung for reasons he doesn’t want to explore. And then Harley hands him a similar envelope and he opens it, and counts too many zero’s and he thinks he’s going to be sick. 

Harley kicks him a bin, and watches as whiskey and coke fill it up. Peter wipes his sleeve under his nose, ignoring Harley’s look of disgust at the snot and bile. 

Morgan comes down at that moment, hair mussed and eyes still sleepy. “You sick Pete?” She climbs onto the counter like she’s done it before, and grabs a can. She hands it over to him, pleased, and says, “Soup! Makes you better. Harl. Give him a spoon.” 

And then she’s gone, dragging her blanket so she can curl up next to Pepper on a brand new couch. 

Peter opens the soup and drinks it, and Harley gags. “Now I’m going to be sick.” But he wipes Peter’s chin, thumb lingering for a moment at the corner of his lips, and then he says, “We should probably talk to Pepper.” 

\--

Morgan and Pepper keep most of SI shares. What’s left anyway. There are a lot of negotiations because Tony had two wills, dated the same. A lot of lawyers argue they’re both invalide and the all the stocks and shares and whatever are up for grabs. A few want to say family inherits everything by default. 

Harley sits in on a lot of the negotiations, lingering by Pepper’s side and squeezing her hand as she and Happy argue for the second will. 

Peter babysits Morgan, which mostly results in letting her paint his face and twist his hair and use him like a jungle gym. “And daddy says when I’m old enough he’s gonna build me a suit kinda like mommy’s but a little like yours too. ‘Cause I wanna swing and fly.”    


And Peter fucking hates that Harley isn’t here to distract her with some song or show or whatever magic word, so he just says, “Yeah, kid, yeah,” and listens to her go on and on about the colors of the suit she’ll never inheart and his heart breaks, thing of her future. Five minutes, five hours, five years… it doesn’t matter. Nothing really does. So Peter grips her tight, holds her until her tiny arms wrap around him and he can bury his face in her hair and rock her. 

She doesn’t get it. He can see that when he pulls back. But he vows, then and there and to himself he’s gonna build her the best goddamned purple glitter ironspider suit ever. “Love you,” he whispers into her hair. 

“600,” she says, and Peter doesn’t know what it means but he’s heard her tell Harley the same.

\--

The first time Peter and Harley fell together, a wreath with a metal heart had been put out to sea and they were drowning in baileys and chocolate milk and all either can remember is bruises and sloppy kisses and an orgasm neither could reach.

The next time, Pepper hands them some paperwork. She gives them access to accounts that she’s been topping off   _ just in case _ and bequeaths Peter a lab and Harley a garage and her voice almost doesn’t quiver when she says, “It’s the best we could do.” 

It’s so much more than they expected. Pepper studies them. The lank figures, the matted hair, the way they lean into each other. “I’m taking Morgan to the park. To talk to her about,” she pauses, breathes in deeply, and then says, “To explain Tony. Again. Clean yourselves up. Use your bed and don’t wreck the couch.” 

She turns to leave, and then she says, “I know exactly how much is in every liquor cabinet and I swear to god Harley, if anything smells like smoke I’ll shove smoke right up your ass.”  And then she and Morgan are gone, Morgan’s eyes already watery. 

\--

They smoke anyways, window open and leaning over the edge.

“I’m sorry we never met,” Harley says quietly. 

“No you aren’t,” Peter answers. “But that’s okay. It’s hard being replaced.” 

Harley eyes him, curiously. “Not exactly sure  _ replaced _ is the right word, but still. All the same.” 

And they’re quiet for a long time until Harley flicks his cigarette to the ground below and takes Peter’s and ashes it in the tray. Despite his extra years, he’s really not much bigger than Peter, and definitely leaner, but he settles himself in Peter’s lap. “Tony always wanted me to meet you. Invited me to all your shit. But I was always too busy when he talked about you.” 

“He talked about you too,” Peter begins, but Harley digs his fingers into Peter’s collar and says, “Christ, shut  _ up _ Spiderboy.”

He sits there for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Tony wanted us to meet ‘cause he knew our, interest, and he thought we’d get along. But mostly ‘cause he wanted his family together. And now,” Harley is quiet, eyes shining.” 

“He’s gone,” Peter says.   


Harley nods. “Yeah, but his family is here and we gotta look out for Pepper and Morgan. For each other.”

Harley surprises Peter then, kissing him sober. He taste like the chocolate milk they steal from Morgan. Like menthol and tobacco. Like grief.

It’s a salty, angry,  _ hurting _ kiss, and it doesn’t get any better as they yank the cloths for each other or as they wrestle in the bed. It’s all teeth and nails and dry thrust and bitten off cries and bruises. 

It’s the best sex Harley’s ever had as Peter pins him down, uses all his strength, makes him  _ beg, _

It’s the best sex Peter’s ever had as Harley bites against his chest digs his nails into his back and  _ claims him _ . They orgasm. Kinda. A painful release that doesn’t fill the hole in their soul, but it’s a start as they lay against each other, sticky and sore and sobbing.

\--

Later, Harley agrees to help with the ironspider suit so long as they leave off the glitter.

Later Pepper “finds” paperwork making Peter and Harley hers, and they all know it’s gonna complicate things when Harley finally gives Peter the ring he’s carrying in his pocket, but its a strange new world anyway.

Morgan doesn’t find anything weird about her brothers sharing their bed, or holding hands as they walk her through the park. And she babbles at them, and at her mother when their eyes go dark and their knuckles white. 

They tell her stories her whole life, about Tony. Show her the recordings, but tell her the secrets too. About a man who taught them little things, and ate meals with them, and helped with homework. 

About a man who loved them all, more than 3000. Who loved them beyond the universe, and who died for his whole family. 

Morgan sometimes cries then, for the father she barely remembers. But her mother kisses her hair and leaves her to harass her brother’s in their new lofts where they play with all the stolen gadgets Tony left behind, drinking chocolate milk they lace with Baileys.    


“Just don’t tell mom,” Harley tells Morgan when she turn seventeen. 

“About this either,” Peter says, handing over a purple nanotech suit.


End file.
